Businesses – be it online or offline need to reach out to the right audience. Then, how would you go about it? When you are venturing into something new, you have already invested in setting up a store (i.e. if it’s a physical store), spending on the products you are going to offer, and other related expenditures. Even if you are selling merchandise online, there are significant investments to be made. In the pursuit of establishing a new business, a lot of your precious time and capital is used up. And, if you are facing budget constraints, you cannot spend on a grandiose marketing campaign. That’s because traditional campaigns will cost you an earth!

However, with the advent of the internet and its widespread use, you can make your brand popular without creating a dent in your wallet. Of course, this is not possible overnight and will take much of your time; the effort and time spent would be worthwhile. If you look at any business today – whether it is a sole proprietorship firm or a medium-scale enterprise, all exploit the benefits of social media sites such as Facebook (FB), Instagram (IG) or Pinterest. In this post, I am going to walk you through some of the ways you can bring potential customers to your business without wasting your hard earned dollars.

Request Friends or Acquaintances to Like Your FB Page or Follow on IG and Pinterest

This may seem a very small and inconsequential step towards brand promotion but it helps. Begin by asking your friends to like your page. This has to continue and their friends should be asked to like and follow your company on these social sites. If you do this religiously, you are sure to get at least 100 fans in a few days. Then, you have to keep at it.

Remember building a strong base of followers is crucial for building the credibility of your brand and its products. Unless others see that people have liked or used your products or services, how can they spend on what you have to offer?

Use Your Social Account to Answer Questions

When your company’s profile or fan page starts garnering enough audience interest; start using your social account for answering customer questions. When people come to know about your kind of business and what you have to offer, they will naturally have a lot of questions to ask. Be prompt in answering their queries and walk the extra mile in solving the problems of your targeted audience. When consumers find that you are responding quickly, they will feel that your brand cares for them. This will make them recommend your brand to their friends, families and acquaintances. This builds up your brand presence over time.

Offer Discounts or Giveaways

As an online business owner, you can sell books, gift items, home appliances and so on. Now, if you only sell without offering any incentives to the shoppers, chances of sales are less. Modern day shoppers need more. For example, if you are selling books, you can make a combo offer by selling another book at a reduced price. Again, if you are selling beauty products for women, you can always delight your female audiences by a free sample bottle of an anti-aging potion. These little discounts or giveaways add value, and in return you get a huge fan following.

There are several users on FB, Instagram and Pinterest. Do not just keep posting information about your products without offering some incentives to the buyers. Plan your marketing campaign on social media in a way that gives people a reason to buy.

Businesses, groups and individuals who post updates on Facebook (FB) are sometimes disappointed because only a handful of people like those updates. And, these users who like the page will be able to see it due to FB’s algorithm EdgeRank. Now, the question arises why only a few are able to see your Facebook posts. This happens because Facebook’s algorithm decides who will view your posts and how long these posts will remain visible.

Now, how this is determined? To answer that question, you need to be aware about 3 primary elements that determine the visibility of posts. Let’s have a look.

Weightage of Content: Different types of contents are posted on FB for social media optimization. These include text based posts, infographics, videos or simply high-quality images with a catchy slogan. It has been observed that pictures and videos are given more weightage than text based content and are visible higher up in the News Feed. Visual content are seen more frequently than ordinary posts.

Affinity: When it comes to affinity, it implies how friendly your business is with your fans. This is determined by how often you interact with your followers. Say for instance, someone has commented on your fan page and you have responded. FB’s algorithm will enhance the affinity score and thus your posts will appear more in the News Feed.

Decay: Posts that are old will not appear no matter what type of content you have posted. For example, if you have posted something 6-7 hours ago, it will not show up because most recent updates will appear high in the News Feed.

Even if it is assumed that all the 3 components work well, there is no assurance that your updates will be seen by all the users who liked your page. This is where the importance of FB post promotion comes into play.

Facebook Post Promotion

When you promote your post on FB, it implies that you are paying an amount at a cost per thousand (CPM) rate. It would last for a period of 3 days and during this time; your posts will be continuously visible in the News Feed of the community members. It will also be visible to their friends. When you promote a post, it becomes an ad.

Say for instance, you are all set to launch a new product and want people to learn about it. In such a case, you can create an appealing FB post and link it to the product description page. Once this is done, you can promote this post to make it more visible.

To ensure more people see your ads, you can:

– Create conventional and low-cost ads

– Use FB ads manager to build and test right rail ads. These ads are particularly targeted at those who liked your page.

How You Can Improve Conversions?

There are ways to convert visitors into customers once users click the link in your promoted post. Here are some on-page tactics that you can employ:

– Use bold words and bullet lists to make the content easily scannable.

– Place the CTA above the fold.

– Use high-resolution visuals and those which are relevant.

Why Opt for Web Personalization?

As far as web personalization is concerned, it means modifying the page content bases on the kind of visitors, i.e. first-time and repeat visitors.

With the help of web personalization techniques, you can choose to show what you want to repeat visitors and something different for first-time ones. For repeat visitors, you can show something unique to move them up in the purchasing cycle.

For example, if you are using an eBook landing page and linking it to your Facebook post, you can show initial and repeat visitors similar USPs and motivate them to download the eBook. On the other hand, on the ‘Thank You’ page, you will reap the maximum benefits if you treat first-time and repeat users in a different manner.

For First-time Visitors: On the ‘Thank You’ Page, add a link to your company’s ‘About’ page so that visitors are able to know more about your organization.

For Repeat Visitors: You will benefit if you show repeat visitors an effective call-to-action so that they are encouraged to speak to one of your sales professional. You can also show them a short product video to persuade them for a sale.

Using these tactics, it will not only help businesses improve their conversion rate from users who come from promoted posts but will also help you monitor the ROI generated via social sites.

Information which remains fresh, relevant, useful, and sought after for several years is known as evergreen content. It is unique content on your website that helps driving quality traffic and also offering a host of benefits. When your content writing specialist creates timeless articles, posts or how-to guides, it reinforces your brand and helps you establish yourself as a thought leader. When content is useful and thought provoking, it attracts organic links as they are more likely to be cited on other quality sites that are related to your niche business. Let’s begin our discussion about finding evergreen content.

Finding the Right Topics

Begin by asking stakeholders, customers and suppliers. The best way to go about it is by asking customers what they would like to read. For example, if you are selling portable greenhouses for home gardening, an interesting and engaging write-up titled, ‘How to grow flowers in your portable greenhouse’ can become an evergreen article.

The modern generation is gadget crazy. Most of the time, you will see them busy with their high-end smartphones or tablets. They are listening to music, watching videos, playing games or downloading some cool apps. So, you can write about useful and amusing mobile apps to draw quality traffic.

Last but not the least is brainstorming ideas. You can ask your employees to participate in a brainstorming session. One employee may come up with a unique topic, another adding a critical viewpoint to it and a third employee making some significant tweaks in the content to turn it into an ageless piece of creative content.

Different Forms of Timeless Content

Do’s and Don’ts articles show readers and customers to do certain things in the right or wrong manner. These are interesting reads. For example, if you publish a Do’s and Don’ts article about Fire Safety, it’s a topic that will appeal to readers for years.

How-to articles offer step-by-step guidelines for doing any specific task. It can be about installing an application on your PC or solving a business problem.

Product related insights or reviews are interesting pieces of content and helps customers make an informed purchase decision.

Writing Evergreen Content

Only an appealing topic and title will not make your content evergreen. To make your articles or posts inimitable, it should have two qualities. First of all, it must have a unique and authoritative voice and of course must be comprehensible. If you fail to establish your authority, no one will read your content. Again, if it’s not easily understandable, no reader will share it across social platforms.

Content Format to Follow

Text Based Articles: There is nothing like informative articles or engaging blog posts as they are important from an SEO perspective and drive maximum traffic.

Infographics: You can use colorful infographics with visuals supporting the text. This form of content is perfect for explaining difficult topics in simple step-by-step instructions.

White Papers: If you want to publish detailed material of about 2000 to 2500 words, then white paper is the right way to reach across to your audience.

Videos: You can convey some evergreen ideas to your customers with short beautifully created videos. Though the cost may be high, but it’s worth the investment.

Presentations: You can also use presentations to hook your audience via a storytelling approach.

WRITING IN AN AUTHORITATIVE STYLE

Well-researched Articles Add More Weightage: You need to research well before beginning to write. When writing about any topic, source information from 2-3 sources for a better understanding. That’s because if you fail to explain your point of view to an average reader, then you do not understand the topic yourself.

Basics Matter: When writing, make sure you are absolutely sure about grammar, spelling and punctuation. Do not use jargons and commit spelling errors as it will affect your trustworthiness.

Your Credibility as an Author: As far as Google Authorship is concerned, it helps internet users recognize authoritative writers. If an author has a credible and inspiring bio appearing on the web or links to the published content, then your content credibility will be certainly established.

WRITING THAT IS EASILY COMPREHENSIBLE

Writing Simply: Even if you are writing for the most elite audience, make sure that your language is simple, easy to understand and straightforward. Sentences should be lucid and have clarity.

Edit in the Real Sense of the Word: When it comes to proofreaders, they proof copy only for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. Experienced editors correct content in terms of logical flow of ideas, conciseness, clarity and accuracy of information.

Have you ever wondered why people prefer to shop online? Basically, there are two benefits to it. Firstly, it helps you shop from the comfort of your home or office. Secondly, customers are able to read product descriptions, compare items, prices, and then make an informed purchase decision. However, the shopping experience can prove to be frustrating if your ecommerce web design is flawed and the checkout process is complicated and not user-friendly.

In this post, I have tried to put together a few ideas and tips to make the checkout process convenient for your shoppers. This is important because a user-friendly checkout page is the key to improved sales and revenues.

Customers Love Shopping, Not Filling out Forms

I have come across ecommerce sites that force buyers to register first before the shopping process is complete. Make sure that you ask to register after a customer has included the items in his cart. Remember that signup forms are obstacles and create inconvenience for shoppers as some time and effort is needed in filling them.

If these barriers are eliminated, your e-store visitors will convert into well-paying customers. That’s because they have already spent some amount of time looking for the products they are interested in, and will not stop. When removing the barriers of filling out forms, you are actually opening the door of your store for the customers to come in.

Educate Shoppers about the Availability of Products

You have entered a departmental store and looking for a book on time management. It’s weekend and the place is crowded. You searched through the shelves but could not find the book you want only to be informed at the last moment: ‘The product is out of stock.’ How do you feel? Not great, naturally. The same thing happens when buyers visit your e-store and goes through numerous steps of the shopping process and leave disappointed discovering that the product is unavailable at the final step.

So, always display information related to the availability of an item right in the beginning of the shopping process. This way a customer knows whether a product is available before adding it to the shopping cart.

Allow Visitors to Use the Back Button as Much as They Want

The back button on an ecommerce site is used a number of times by visitors. There are buyers who might be visiting your e-shop for the first time. When it comes to adding items to the cart, people do make mistakes, especially when they are checking out. There are some portals that disable this button which annoys buyers.

So, for a smooth and super easy shopping experience, ensure that:

The back button is active and directs users to the previous page without any errors.

The user’s data is saved and displayed again (especially if it’s a form). This makes your customer’s task easy as they are not forced to re-enter all the details in the form.

Let Customers Know Where They Are While Shopping

The checkout process involves a number of steps. This means that a buyer will have to complete several steps before placing an order. For the ease and convenience of your consumers, ensure that you include a progress indicator so that shoppers know exactly where they are and how many steps are left for the completion of the process.

Add Product Images and Descriptions

When someone shops, he or she reviews the items before adding them to the cart. The same rule holds true for online buyers. They need to check the items added before clicking the ‘Order’ button. So, add product visuals, descriptions, and other related details such as color, size, material, dimensions, hardcover or paperback (in case of books).

Image Credit: iTexico

A Simple and Easy to Understand Interface

When your customer is about to checkout, details such as popular products, most viewed items, product category links, current deals, etc. should be eliminated. Keep the interface simple and easy to understand.

The Checkout Process Must Not Be Disrupted

Make sure that the shopping process is smooth and a buyer is not taken out of the checkout page. Doing so will create problems such as:

Users may get perplexed and close the window, thus losing the checkout page altogether.

Shoppers may feel distracted and fail to finish off with the process.

Inform When the Products Will Be Delivered

Do you know what that one drawback of an online store is? You have to wait some time to get the goods delivered. To address this problem, inform your customers about the delivery time. Once the payment option is chosen and the final button clicked, you can inform by saying, ‘Thank you, your goods will be delivered in 2-3 business days’. This information will give your customers an idea about the expected date when the product will be delivered.

Finally, the Confirmation Email

After a customer has placed an order, it’s important that you send a confirmation email having a summary of the order details, total payment and delivery time. This detail will help buyers validate that they have ordered the right products.

Hope this post helps you design a user-friendly ecommerce site that converts. Please feel free to share your views as well.

We all have heard about the famous adage, ’The pen is mightier than the sword.’ How true it is! Words and their appropriate use can flatter, inspire, persuade and motivate your customers to take some action. And, it is the responsibility of an accomplished copywriter to exploit the power of words for the financial gain of your business. This is where the importance of landing page content comes into play. In this post, we are going to discuss about how an experienced copy writing professional writes effective landing page copy that converts.

First Understand What Problems Your Customers Are Facing

There are amateurish writers who start writing without even understanding the problems customers are facing. While penning your thoughts, ensure that you explain how your products or services solve their problems. The style and flow of the write-up should be such that it explains your customer’s problems in a lucid manner. In other words, the tone of the content should be like as if you are talking to your customers.

Is It Features or Benefits?

If you are a copywriter reading this blog and have been trained in web copy writing at some point of time, your mentor must have told you to focus on product benefits instead of the features. Now, how to distinguish between the two? This is important as without understanding the difference, it’s difficult churning out killer landing page copy.

When it comes to FEATURES, it is the language used in your company to discuss about the products/services on offer. BENEFITS, on the other hand, refer to the language used by your potential and existing customers to describe your products. So, build your content based on the benefits offered by your products. Let’s cite an example to make this point clear. Say for instance, you are selling microwave online. The product or landing page description should include the following points:

Saves cooking time

Useful for working ladies who return home feeling tired and exhausted. Our microwave cooks food faster without you having to toil and sweat in the kitchen.

Preparing kebabs and steaks has never been this easier!

You can also include other relevant points depending on your products. If you simply mention the stark features of a microwave, your customers, especially women will not show much interest as features won’t tell how your product will make their lives easier. So, think before you write.

Amazon Reviews Will Help You

Some people do not have any idea as to how to begin. That’s why it’s important understanding what consumers actually want. The best way to find out is by looking at Amazon reviews. Look for the reviews of the products in your niche. It may be a smartphone, book, watches, garments or anything under the sun. Take some time in reading what customers who have purchased these items are saying. Was their experience good? Or the products failed to live up to their expectations? To get a better idea, focus more on one or two star reviews. It will help you learn what customers are struggling with.

Based on these reviews, it will be easier to identify the problems and solve them through apt product descriptions.

Write Smart Copy

Be Direct and Succinct: Come straight to the point without beating about the bush. All words used should be used with a purpose and when you do the final edit, ensure that the final copy is crisp and devoid of fluff.

Use Simple Words, Short Sentences & Paragraphs: The landing page of your website is no place to flaunt your dexterity for ornamental prose. So, please do not write a sonnet. Instead, write your copy in a manner to accentuate product or service benefits by incorporating smart and easy to understand punch lines.

Talk with Your Customers: The tone of the write-up should be like as if you are conversing with your audience. Write in the second person and address your customer as ‘You’.

Test with Different Content & Headlines: When it comes to a landing page, it is different from an article or blog post. It’s a continuous process. So, try improving the page with different kinds of content and headlines.

Hook Your Audience with a Killer Headline

The key to the success of any product or landing page is a smart headline. That’s because people read headlines first, and if it’s interesting; they continue reading the body copy. So, if you fail to attract the attention of your prospects with a killer headline, they have other websites to divert their attention.

Paint a Word-Picture or Product Story

You have landing page content and have answered all questions pertaining to your products/services. Then, you have to narrate an interesting product story and paint a word-picture explaining how your customer’s lifestyle would be after he or she has bought your product. Let customers visualize how their day to day problems will be solved after using your products or services.

Give Your Customers a Reason to Buy

You are selling an array of products at great prices. Your competitors are selling similar products at competitive prices. Then, why should customers buy from you and not them! Well, you can prove the credibility of your products by:

Sharing testimonials from buyers who have already used your products and are satisfied with the experience.

Lessen a buyer’s risk by offering some kind of a guarantee.

Highlight special offers such as a discount. Attract customers with a limited period offer as it converts.

Ask Readers to Do Something

After reading your copy, make sure that your potential customers know what they are supposed to do. Therefore, include a call-to-action (CTA) that is direct and tells prospects to subscribe to your newsletters, download an eBook, or inquire about your products or services.

Do Not Conclude with a CTA…Summarize

Your CTA is important but do not end your web copy with it. Use the blank space below the CTA to summarize the solutions you have offered and also highlight the problems your products solve.

Do you have a well-designed landing page with smart, compelling copy? Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Aspiring actors, singers, rappers, performers or entertainers have to literally drag their feet from one audition to the other for coming into the limelight. Today, musicians, actors, singers and comedians do not need to look any farther than their PC or laptop to earn that celebrity status! Is this sounding too good to be true? Want to make it big on YouTube or other video platforms such as Vimeo? Keep reading to get your answers.

Aspiring artists and singers may try their luck (to get famous) on video sharing sites. Entertainers like Jessica Rose, became famous by showing her true persona and some amount of love to her fans and followers. People endowed with a good voice or someone who is good at mimicry can rise to fame on the YouTube radar. Let’s find out how.

1. Staying Culturally Relevant

You can have a better shot at rising to fame by uploading videos that are related to pop culture. Justin Bieber did it and succeeded. So can you!

2. Entertainment, Entertainment and Entertainment

If you watch popular videos, there is one thing in common. The entertainers- be it artists or pop stars have something interesting to offer to the audience. It may be foot tapping music, useful advice or a few minutes of hilarious performance. So, the key to success is providing loads of entertainment. You will never know when your video has gone viral and spiraled towards fame and splendor!

3. Create Parodies or Give Your Video a Hilarious Twist

Responses to other videos, parodies and hilarious twists to an existing popular video are great ways to capitalize on video sharing sites like YouTube or Vimeo. This way, your hilarious video will pop up when people will be searching for the famous video.

4. Respond to Comments

A good way to connect with your audience and build relationships is by responding to your subscribers. If your fan leaves a comment, respond back. If someone asks for an advice, offer it. Be the way you are to attract the attention of more and more viewers.

Now, check out how YouTube has helped these aspiring entertainers reach out and impress their audience with their talent display on video sharing sites.

Jessica Rose

In the year 2006, LonelyGirl15, a teenage girl just posted a series of YouTube videos about her individual observations about life. The videos went viral and attracted the attention of millions! More speculation was over the fact whether the videos were genuine or fake. These web flicks turned out be fictitious and created by a group of friends having experience on film and the internet. This teen girl was no one but Jessica Rose – American-New Zealand actress, who made it big on YouTube by playing Bree alias LonelyGirl15.

Since then there was no looking back for Jessica as she went on to play in the TV series ‘Greek’. She also appeared in several movies including ‘I Know Who Killed Me’, ‘Ghost Town’, ‘Casting Couch’ and more.

Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber was another musically endowed guy from Ontario, Canada. In 2007, this 12-year old boy’s mum posted a YouTube video so that family members and friends can see it. This video was part of a local music competition. His mom continued posting several R&B songs until the boy’s talent was revealed and recognized by Scooter Braun, a music promoter.

Braun flew him to Atlanta for demo recordings and soon he became the famous pop star behind the chartbuster ‘Baby’, driving young girls crazy with the Bieber fever!

Brooke Brodack

Brooke started by uploading some short, crazy and funny videos in 2005. One can see her dancing wildly and enthusiastically to a Romanian pop number! It just took less than a year to turn her from no-name to fame as she bagged an 18-month contract from the renowned American TV host, Carson Jones Daly. Comedian Brooke Brodack helped develop content for Daly’s production house.

Daly was not the only prominent media persona to take notice of Brooke’s talent. This rising star’s talent was also recognized by the Wall Street Journal when she was dubbed as a ‘crossover star’. Again, The New Yorker aptly named her as ‘the first real YouTube star’. Brooke now works in collaboration on several comedy ventures across the US.

Rebecca Black

Rebecca Black rose to fame once her 15 minutes 2011 music video ‘Friday’ went viral. Though her video was criticized by viewers and critics alike, it received millions of views in the first 5 months. She made it big on YouTube in a short span of time and got an opportunity to work on Katy Perry’s music video, ‘Last Friday Night’. Rebecca is also working on other videos as well.

These aspiring stars show us that fame and celeb status can be just around the corner. The perfect blend of luck and talent has helped them achieve considerable success.

When you leave meaningful messages on other blogger’s posts, it is known as professional blog commenting. However, there are businesses that do this just to get some backlinks to their websites. Are you clinging to such old practices? If yes, then you are missing marketing opportunities. Remember that embracing a blog commenting marketing strategy helps your business become known within your niche industry.

Most of the professional blogs are set up with the ‘no follow’ tag in the comment links. This means that people who are interested just in getting backlinks will not get any credit or recognition for a backlink that has no or little value for the purpose.

So, How Commenting Helps?

Do you actively participate in your niche’s online community? If you comment on blogs related to your business, post on Facebook and Twitter or participate in forums, people come to know about your company, brand and products. A trust is built around your brand and customers take interest in your products and services.

Getting the Most out of Your Blog Commenting Efforts

When you comment on a professional blog related to your business, it should not be done just for the sake of it. The question is how to go about it. Well, here are some ideas to help you out.

Look for Blogs that are Pertinent to Your Business: You are an owner of a digital marketing and web consulting company offering web design and development, content creation, SEO, SMO, and mobile app development services. While posting comments, it’s imperative that you look for blogs and posts that are closely related. It’s no use posting on a blog about gardening. So, relevancy matters if you want traffic that is well-targeted to your website, products or services.

Comment on Blogs that Attract Considerable Traffic: Try commenting on blogs that normally gets 20-25 comments per post. This is the best way to ascertain whether readers are interested in participating in a discussion and taking it forward. And, when you post a meaningful comment, chances are there that people will click through to your website.

Be the First One to Comment: When someone posts an in-depth article about any topic, ensure that you are the first one to comment on it. At least be visible within the first 3-4 comments. This is difficult but very significant to make your business known within your niche industry.

Post Relevant, Useful and Informative Comment: Leave comments that are useful, relevant and informative instead of posting something as vague as ‘great post’, or ‘nice write up’, adding no meaning or value to the post. You can make out spammy comments by looking at your website’s posts. Then, there are people who post meaningless and irrelevant messages just to get a backlink from your site. Remember comments that are spammy are immediately deleted by the blog administrator. Only the thoughtful ones are posted. And, once you leave purposeful comments, it builds your credibility and may even result in referral traffic to your website.

Comment on Various Blogs instead of Leaving Too Many Comments on a Single Site: If you keep leaving comments on a single site, the blog owner may perceive you as a robot generating automatic comments after every post. So, be natural and post one comment per blog. You can post at various times at various sites for better results.

Do you comment on niche blogs that are related to your business? Please share your thoughts.

Do you churn out content that fails to create an impact? Or work really hard on researching extensively to create killer content that resonates with your targeted audience? Unless you study hard and analyze tons of resources, your content will underperform and fail to reach out to your targeted customers.

Though content marketing is regarded extremely important for 2014, only a few companies have a solid content policy in place. This results in web copy, articles and blogs that are too ordinary, and lacks the richness of unique, creative, useful and worth-sharing information.

So, if you really want information that engages your customers, increases social sharing and networking, learn how you can build a foolproof content strategy.

Collate Lots of Data and Target Keywords that Fit Your Brand

Consider you have a business and offering website design and development services. Just writing a web copy of 250-300 words will not help anymore. You have to prove to your potential clients how your services will help solve their business problems. This means you have to do in-depth research and collect loads of information and then write smart, useful copy to establish how your services will help improve your client’s business.

Just researching on content is not enough; you also need to research on the keywords that aptly fit your client’s brand. Use the search terms that best describe your business and also ensure that these keywords are used by your customers when they looking for products or services online.

What You Need to Create and Post?

Whatever posts, social media content or infographics you are creating, they should bring in some positive results. The key to success is lining up your sales plan with your understanding of the goal of your brand’s content marketing efforts.

Write Posts that Create Awareness: If you want to improve on brand awareness, churn out product or service related posts on a regular basis. Besides articles and blog posts, you can also create short social media content, eye-catching and useful infographics and even banner ads.

E-Books, White Papers & Buyer’s Guides: Shoppers who look for products on the internet prefer researching before making a purchase. To keep your target customers engaged for a considerable period of time, write-ups like e-books, white papers and buyer’s guides help in brand reinforcement. Post such content weekly to help those buyers who are looking for information related to your products/services. Make sure your e-books and buyer’s guides have appropriate images and illustrations to support the content. Your content should help consumers make informed decisions.

Publish Top 10 Products or a Best of List: It’s needless to say that online competition is pretty stiff. The products you are selling are also sold by ten other companies at the same price. In such a situation, your prospective customers will compare your brand of products to that of your competitors. You have to influence these searchers by publishing information about your top 10 products or a popular list. Try posting such contents on social sites to build more customer engagement.

An Editorial Calendar to Produce Fresh Content

Include an editorial calendar in your content strategy as it will help you house your content plans, keywords, and social messaging. This way you can post fresh content and also know when to post what.

Make the Most of Information around You

Overload of information sometimes makes us perplexed as to what to embrace and what to reject.

In-depth Keyword Research and Web Analytics: Web page views, search volumes, keyword research, and website navigation are some of the things that can be integrated into your content strategy. It will make the information that you post more pertinent, and can be found in the search engine results pages.

Crowdsourcing Ideas: Many companies are now crowdsourcing ideas to get a better understanding of what customers want. Once you know this, it will be easier to offer what your targeted audience wants.

Analyze Social Behavior: Study and analyze what your customers (both existing and potential) are doing on social media platforms like Facebook, Google+, Pinterest or Twitter. Analyze:

What they are discussing?

What topics or contents are getting the most number of likes?

Who they are following?

What images or visuals are more liked by your target audience?

Doing so will help you create user-friendly content and improve interaction.

Use These Tools to See What’s Resonating

There are social media tools that will help you know what users are doing, what they are talking about, what’s resonating, and also find influencers who will befriend your brand. Let’s have a look at the tools:

Content Marketing Institute: This is a useful resource to find tools that will help you succeed in your research and also gauge your content marketing efforts.

Tweet Binder: This is a free tool that helps you understand the reach, impact, followers, and contributors for the people who are discussing about a specific topic.

ShareTally.co: It will help you know how popular your content is on social sites and the number of shares generated.

Topsy: Another free tool that helps in finding influencers on certain topics.

Finding Your Brand’s Influencers

An influencer who is engaged with your content is someone who likes your posts and got inspired to share. You can find your engaged influencers amongst those who comment or share your posts socially. These influencers can be colleagues, thought leaders or celebrities. These people have the ability to make your brand popular and reach out to your targeted audience.

If you are a photographer reading this post, you already know that your website is the most powerful tool to give you and your work the required exposure. A photography website design helps clients know about you and find your works through Google search. All of this, is however, not as simple as it sounds. Remember clients who look for good photographers look for someone with spick-and-span camera handling skills. So, you need to show to the world at large that you are the best! Thanks to this age of digital marketing where you can showcase your work and give it global exposure in varied ways. Let’s read on to learn more.

Flash – A BIG No!

Flash based sites may look attractive but will load pretty slowly and unavailable to those who are trying to access photography sites using their mobile devices. Even if it is accessed using PCs or laptops, your portfolio page will take several minutes to load. And, you know that web users are impatient and have a very limited attention span.

There is another drawback of flash oriented sites. You will not be able to integrate keywords to the visuals used. Yes, I am talking about ALT tags. This way search engines will have difficulty indexing your site, and this will severely affect your site’s rankings on Google’s search results pages. If users are unable to find you on the first page of Google, the whole purpose of designing a website with animations and flying texts become futile.

Add a Blog

I know that starting a blog with interesting and engaging content is painstaking and requires a lot of time and effort, but blogging offers a plethora of benefits to photographers. It’s not necessary that you will have to post lengthy articles about photography ideas and tips all the time. You can make it more engrossing with a mix and match of text and visuals. For example, if you are good at capturing landscape elements or have a penchant for capturing still life, post those snaps with a smart caption. The greatest benefit of blogging is that it will make people come back to your site.

Do Not Forget SEO

No matter how attractive your portfolio page, you must not ignore SEO. Use relevant keywords, rich content, backlinks to related and quality websites, and of course a simple and easy to understand navigation system so that your site can be easily used and browsed by web users. In simple words, prospective clients should be able to access the information or images easily without getting puzzled by a labyrinth of complicated navigation menus.

Organizing the Content

The portfolio page is the most important page as far as a photography website is concerned. Here are some useful ideas to help you:

Arrange your work according to different categories – The best works should be displayed first, next show samples of your diverse snaps, and finally the middle portion of the portfolio page can be filled with your experience as a photographer. This strategy will work because you wow your potential clients first with the best works; show the diversity of your skills, and finally wowing them again!

And, it is needless to say that that you will add a strong call-to-action for motivating visitors to take some action after visiting your site.

Have a mobile app for your business? Not yet? It’s high time that you seriously consider mobile app development and exploit the benefits to improve business performance. Let’s read this post to understand the benefits it will shower on your business.

Engaging with Your Customers

When it comes to modern digital marketing, you simply cannot ignore a huge target audience using handheld devices. One of the greatest advantages of using mobile applications is that you can engage with your customers in real time and in places where other forms of media cannot. If done in the right manner, you will not only be able to create customer engagement but also turn them into ones generating revenues for your company!

Not getting my point? Well, let’s cite an example to make this point clear. For example, if you look at Kraft’s amazing app, i.e. the iFood Assistant, it keeps end users engrossed with more than 2000 recipes. You will also find shopping lists, great deals, and coupon features to attract consumers. Consumers are also able to share recipes with friends on social sites using this app.

Great for Promotion

Mobile apps are also great for promoting your company’s products. Say for instance, you have a pizza store on a busy city thoroughfare with several commuters passing by within a mile of your pizza outlet. While walking, if these customers are notified on their smartphones that your pizzeria is providing coupons with a buy 1 get 1 free offer, there are high possibilities of these customers visiting your store for a bite of cheese dripping pizzas! This means that mobile apps are not only beneficial for business promotion but also for increasing sales.

Excellent Customer Service

Mobile apps not only benefit businesses but also customers. Make your customers’ life simpler by helping them connect with your brand and use tools to make their life simpler when using your company’s products or services. Consider, for instance, mobile banking apps that help customers access their account, check account balance, make money transfers, pay utility bills, deposit checks, and so on. This not only provides excellent customer service but also serves as a value-added service that your targeted audience will definitely like.

These apps help you reach out to a wider target market as people can even shop for your products on the go! What mobile applications have you developed? Who is your target audience? Please feel free to comment.

Creationinfoway is the first digital marketing agency which is creating better brand experiences with great result of digital marketing. Experiences build relationships with build great brands and traffic for business online.